Investing In Gold and How To Buy It

Gold is an excellent investment vehicle and nearly always produces an excellent return on your investment – especially over the long-term. With gold prices inching upwards now looks a good time to add precious metals to your investment portfolio.

With no sign of bank interest rates being lifted, overpriced equities and easy money pumped into the system, there are few other investments consumers can make without taking a risk. Gold on the other hand is used by investment bankers as a hedge against other assets because the risk in buying precious metals is vastly reduced.

You can invest in gold using various methods, but the safest way is to buy gold bullion coins and have them shipped to your house. You will have to pay a little more in shipping costs, but you at least have the peace of mind that you physically have you investment to hand should the time come to sell. And this is not always guaranteed with currency investments or electronic transfers.

If there is another economic crisis like the 2008 collapse, bank have the power to take money from your account or confiscate your gold holdings from vaults. Although we have to hope that banks will never have to go to such measures, the debt ceiling that has been creating from a culture of credit is weighing so heavily, a collapse of the financial system is inevitable.

It therefore make practical as well as financial sense to remove your money from the banking system and invest it in a physical commodity you will be able to sell on at a later date for a good price. Gold bullion coins present the best opportunities.

What to buy

The choice of gold coins is vast, but in order to get the most from your investment when you come to sell, go for a coin that contains the highest amount of pure gold, depending on how much you can afford to spend. The price of gold is recorded by the spot price which measures the value in ounces. The current price for example is $1316.30 an ounce. On top of this you will need to add around 4% for the premium and whatever shipping costs the company you purchase from chooses.

The best coins to buy have a .9999 purity of gold. There are several options, but the British gold sovereign, the Austrian Philharmonic, the South African Krugerrand and the US Eagles are among the most popular as they offer the most reasonable prices and are easier to sell on. If one ounce coins are out of your price range, you can still buy them in smaller quantities, namely, half-ounce, quarter-ounce and one-tenth.

These types of coins also come with certificates of authentication as they are purchased directly from the respective mints. You will get the best prices from online stores, but be careful when buying online as there are a lot of fraudulent coins in circulation. Avoid sites like eBay and Craigslist and only by from online stores that have a London Bullion Market accreditation like coininvest.com.